Survivors

I never expected this...then again when does anyone? When does someone who has never done something significant in their life suddenly have to deliver a speech in front of people who could possibly die if something went wrong? Someone who had been preparing for something like this someone who wanted something like this. So in other words, not me. Not someone as insignificant as me. Now I have a lot of people looking at me for wisdom for what they should do. 

“Are you ready?” A voice in front of me asks. I turn away from the car window and look at the person in front of me. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be I suppose.” I can feel my heart beating in my chest. Like any moment now it’ll burst out and make itself known. My hands shake as I push the car door open. I glare at them and try to make them stop shaking. I’ve never been a very strong public speaker. Now I’m wishing I was. I walk toward the building mass in front of me as if I’m walking toward my execution. Calm down your not talking to that many people. 

The crowd quiets as I step in front of them. It’s strange to think that people could be that quiet but right at that moment, they were. I clear my throat and speak:

“Hey...I’m not very good at speaking in front of people. I know you’re probably expecting a good leader but I’m not that person. Honestly, I have no idea why you would have chosen me. I may be strong but I’m not a very social person.” I take a deep breath trying not to scream and run or even worse vomit. “We are having difficult times in our world right now. People are dying, we are the last few remaining survivors. But we just need to survive as long as possible. As we have been doing these last few years.” 

“Alright, but what are you planning to do? We can’t live like this forever.” A voice in the mass of people shouts. With those words, the crowd erupts into shouting and accusing. 

“Hey!” I shout but no one seems to hear me over the shouting. “HEY!” I shout again. No response. I look around and see a gun sitting on the counter next to where I’m standing. It’s a stupid idea because it’ll make a lot of noise but I don’t have a choice if this escalates then we’ll be screwed anyway. So I grab it and open the chamber. there’s one bullet in the chamber. Perfect. I cock it and lift it high and shoot. As the bang resonates through the crowd they finally quiet down and look at me. 

“Ok great now that you're all done chewing each other’s asses. Shut up. Fighting with each other is not gonna solve anything!” I hear grumbling as I continue. “I really didn’t want to shoot because that’s wasting a bullet and also we might have drawn their attention. So now we gotta move this splendid party somewhere else.” As I say that I hear screeching in the sky. Crap this is why I was afraid. Five years ago the earth broke open and a bunch of strange monsters came rushing out grabbing and killing whoever they could get their talons and teeth on. Were one of the last remaining groups. Not in the city or the state or even the country. In the world. Yeah, humanity has nearly been wiped out. Your classical apocalypse. 

“Run!” I shout. No one screams not so much as a heavy breath. Noise attracts the monsters. It's horrible because in a big group it’s hard to keep them quiet. But we have learned to keep quiet and keep to the shadows. As we run the silhouettes of the giant birds are painted below us moving as quietly as we are. Finally, our hideout is just over the next ridge. But the next moment comes in slow motion. One of the younger people in our group he’s probably around eleven or twelve. It’s sort of surprising he’s made it this far. Usually, younger people like him don’t make it because they’re too loud. I can see him trip and fall. Him scraping his knee and tumbling. Him sitting up and saying one word. Ow. With that, all the creatures in the sky screamed and swarmed us. I watched in hopeless despair as people were lifted into the sky and carried off as if they weighed nothing more than a balloon. I grabbed a branch off the ground and brought out the matches I always had in my pocket. I try and try and try to get the branch to light on fire but with the wind from the creature’s wings, it keeps blowing out. Finally, I get it lit. I plunge into the crowd getting hit by wings, arms, heads. I wave around the branch screaming as loud as I can. 

I can feel the black eyes of dozens of monsters on my back. I ran out of the crowd still screaming. I can feel the wind from hundreds of wings trying to blow me off course. There. A few hundred yards in front of me is a fallen wall from a building being held up by a car door. I put on a burst of speed and when I get close enough I throw the makeshift torch as hard as I can and slide under the wall baseball style. I roll into a ball covering my face and head with my arms. I can hear the scratching and fighting of the monsters above me as they fight for the torch.

Finally the scratching stops. It’s quiet. I poke my head out and look around. The sky is clear and perfect. I climb out from under the wall and dust myself off. I jog to the hideout. And push open the door. As I walk in I look at the people around me. Dirty with some blood smeared on their clothes and skin. I push through the crowd and look over the eyes staring at me. We may not be a big group. We are only about fifty after all but at that moment the world stopped spinning and the people in front of me might as well have been five million people because that’s what they were worth.